Diablo: The End, The Beginning

[bobquasit]

The Ancients were so easy that I went right back and did them again, just to see if I'd get more experience from them (I didn't). I think I used no more than two full rejuves, and both I and my hireling came through in perfect health.

So I quickly cruised down to the next waypoint. The day after I went roaring through the endgame; my hireling died once, but that was it. Baal himself was easy, of course. The worst time was on the final wave of monsters at the Throne of Destruction; they killed my hireling, and I had to lead them on a chase through the rest of the area. That made it easier to pick them off one by one.

Baal himself was fairly easy. Fortunately the ending cinematic is one that doesn't crash my system, so I got to watch that again as well. It's a pity that Blizzard will probably never make a theatrical movie, because someone over there is a fantasy film-making genius.

Since then...I finished off the secret Cow level (although how "secret" can a level be that's documented on the official website?), and cruised through the first two quests on Nightmare level almost before I had realized it.

So now what? Well, I might take a break for a while. It seems that I've reached one of those annoying areas where it's almost impossible to level up. In fact, I suspect that going back to a Normal game and fighting through the last few levels might be more profitable, experience-wise, than running through the Act 1 maps on Nightmare level.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Klyfix here again...

Uhh, "Cow Level"?

[charibdis.livejournal.com]

Yep. There's a level which is only reachable through some convoluted steps with otherwise useless magic items that contains nothing but cows that attack you, including a cow kind. I think they have halberd-like thingies and they're supposed to be pretty damn tough.

It originated because in earlier versions of Diablo people had constantly circulated fake rumors of a secret cow level and the designers thought it would be funny to actually put one in.

"Moo"

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

The secret cow level has been kind of a disappointment, actually. It's sort of like the secret 4th level of Atari's "Adventure"; when I was a kid the rumor was that there was an acid-breathing chromatic dragon in there, plus 100 new rooms and all sorts of cool magic items. The reality was far less interesting, just a flashing "Created by Warren Robinette".

Of course, somebody eventually created Indenture, a complete re-creation of Adventure for the PC with the secret level added (alas, only a normal dragon, though), but the 100 extra rooms got kind of boring - and the new magic items were mostly just confusing. Oh well.

As for the cow level, there was a lot of funny speculation about it in D1. The reality in D2 is mildly amusing, but that's about it. After you've won the game, you need to get Wirt's leg (the wooden leg of the annoying NPC boy in D1); if you didn't save it from when you first went through the ruins of Tristam to rescue Cain, you can go back and get it again. Incidentally, you really shouldn't save the leg at first, because it's always available. It'll just take up slots.

Anyway, take the leg and buy a Tome of Town Portal (they're cheap). Go to the Rogue Encampment (in the same level of game as you've already won), and put both the leg and the Tome into the Horadric Cube. Hit Transmute and a red portal will appear where you're standing.

The portal leads to the secret cow level. It's basically a large outdoor area, like the Stony Fields in Act I, with one or two wooden corrals, and a HUGE number of cows, all standing upright and wielding polearms. Supposedly it's really dangerous to go through the portal, because there's a glitch that can make it appear in the middle of a herd of cows; some people have supposedly died before they had a chance to react, so everyone says you should drop a second Town Portal as soon as you get safely some distance from the red portal.

But for myself, I've never had a problem with it. Likewise, they say that the cows give humungous experience and magic items, but again, it has never turned out that way for me.

The funniest thing about the cows is that they all say "Moo". Apparently, everyone at Blizzard was individually recorded making the silliest, non-bovine "Moo" that they could muster, so you end up with a whole range of ridiculous sounding "moos".

That's the story.

Re: "Moo"

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to mention that one other thing that's disappointing about the cow level is that the Cow King is visually identical to all the other cows. Couldn't they have spent two minutes to give him at least a slight difference in the graphic? Somebody suggested that he should at least have had a crown made out of milk bottles, or something. If he had, the level would be about ten times funnier.